Nintendo Has Taken the Nintendo Out of Animal Crossing (And Why I’m Okay With That)

Ever since I started playing Animal Crossing: New Horizons all the way back in March of this year, one thing has become abundantly apparent: a complete lack of Nintendo-themed items.

Yes, I know there’s the “NTDO” caps and such, but that’s not even remotely the same thing. This is the series which has, since its inception, allowed us to decorate our houses to our heart’s content with everything from giant Arwing models to Triforces, Metroids, and Mario Karts (or should that be “Mario karts”?). Heck, a lamented long-lost feature of the GameCube version was the ability to acquire a bunch of NES games, each with their own NES to play them on. None of that (except for two Switches and a Ring-Con) is in New Horizons, however.

And you know what? I’m okay with that.

For as long as I’ve been playing Animal Crossing, getting every Nintendo item in the game was like an obsession for me. With only so much storage space — not that I would keep any such item out of view, if I could help it — and precious little floor space upon which to display everything, my houses invariably wound up looking something like this:

Images via Game Rant.

GameCube, Nintendo DS, Wii… each time, it was the same story, just with some different Nintendo-related swag involved. Nintendo 3DS’s Animal Crossing: New Leaf was something of an outlier, as it allowed you to rent museum space as Exhibition Rooms, which served as a good place to dump everything. And I’m sure a lot of people’s houses looked the same.

It stands to reason, of course. If you’re playing Animal Crossing, there’s a fair-to-middling chance that you might be a Nintendo fan, maybe. As such, it also makes sense that one who plays Animal Crossing might even be a big enough fan that they end up with a laser-focus on getting whatever Nintendo items are in the game.

I know I was. And as a result, I think that I was so focused on getting the Nintendo stuff that I kind of ignored the rest of the game. In effect, Nintendo was distracting me from their own game by including all their little fanservice objects.

That’s where New Horizons comes in. By taking the Nintendo out of Animal Crossing, I had little choice but to look at everything else that was left. In doing so, it felt like another experience, perhaps even more than the new innovations to the series already made it.

I started paying more attention to what else was in the game. If I was still housing a Nintendo museum under my roof (or even the museum’s), I don’t know if I’d have looked at enough of the other stuff to put together something like my diner here:

Not shown: The HHA-approved version. Screw those guys.

Even after creating something like this, I’m exploring other possibilities as well. For instance, after getting my gold Happy Home Academy trophy, I decided to convert it into a seafood restaurant with all the various stuff I got off of CJ and Gullivarr:

Don’t order the shrimp basket; it’s really just crawfish.

In addition to the restaurant, I’ve fleshed out the other rooms in various ways. Upstairs, the observatory is a tribute to space and dinosaurs. Downstairs, I have another pride and joy: my own Tony Stark-esque lab/workshop:

I’m not Iron Man. “Gold-Titanium Man” doesn’t have the same ring, however.

For me, personally, this is all new territory.

Of course, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention how Animal Crossing: New Horizons not only gives you more substantial inventory options, but also allows you to place items outside, which is a real game changer, as now, you no longer have to construct a bus stop or patio or whatever indoors.

For my part, if there was one other thing I did try to do in previous games, it was complete the boxing/wrestling arena. But besides feeling rather cramped indoors, I’ve always had a certain affinity for outdoor shows:

It stands for “Animal Crossing Wrestling,” of course.

Now, with the outdoors available to place things, that might solve the whole “where to put Nintendo stuff” issue, right? But depending on how much there is, that might mean less room for the theme park, the orchard, the park, and so on.

Granted, my wife put those up, so we’ll just put that in the “maybe” pile.

Nevertheless, as I mentioned before, my focus on the Nintendo stuff largely distracted me from the rest of the game. In New Horizons, I’ve dominated the Bug-Off, the Fishing Tourney, completed the dinosaur wing at the museum, completely maxed out my house’s expansion potential (you could always add more, Nintendo), created a town/island where everyone seems satisfied, and had the HHA try to offer me their job. I’m pretty sure I’ve managed precisely none of that in any of the previous installments of the series.

Plus, I’m inclined to think that it makes visiting other islands a bit more interesting, since everything won’t be decked out with the same set of Nintendo items.

As it turns out, however, it’s not to last.

If this is Nintendo’s first idea for slash fiction, I’m out.

Back in early September, Nintendo announced that in celebration of Super Mario‘s 35th anniversary, they would be releasing Mario-themed furniture in the game come March of 2021.

Despite everything I’ve said here, this really doesn’t bother me. In fact, I’m not even sure I’m all that interested (though the lack of details doesn’t do much to help that).

I think part of that is because it’s coming around a year after the game’s release, so it didn’t provide that distraction from the rest of the game I was talking about. Might be a different story to anyone who picks up the game in March 2021, but then again, I imagine anyone doing so then is probably doing it because of the Mario items.

Plus, if Super Mario 3D All-Stars and Super Mario Bros. 35 are anything to go by, the items won’t be available past the end of the month, anyway.

I don’t know what else there is to say here, so here’s a shot I couldn’t find a good place for of the dinosaur-themed patio space for my restaurant:

He’ll gladly finish that, if you’re not gonna.

Thanks for reading!

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David Oxford is a freelance writer of many varied interests. If you’re interested in hiring him, please drop him a line at david.oxford (at) nyteworks.net.